{"id":116319,"date":"2024-12-24T19:18:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/?p=116319"},"modified":"2025-03-28T12:42:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T12:42:58","slug":"some-readers-might-find-these-upsetting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/some-readers-might-find-these-upsetting\/","title":{"rendered":"Some readers might find these upsetting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henry Leveson-Gower<\/strong> examines two texts that explain how neoliberal thinking and human frailty brought us to where we are.<\/p>\n

Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization, Verso 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

George Monbiot & Peter Hutchinson, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life), Allen Lane 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

The recent Trump victory sparked a huge debate among Democratic supporters and many others about \u2018what went wrong\u2019. Some blamed \u2018wokeness,\u2019 while others argued that the Democrats had not listened to the hurt caused by the spiralling cost of living, which Trump promised to sort immediately\u2014a promise he has now dumped before taking office.<\/p>\n

Both these books seek to answer this question with longer and definitively leftwing perspectives.\u00a0 Warning: the reader will need a strong stomach as there is little light at the end of their dark tunnels of explanation.<\/p>\n

Monbiot and Hutchinson point squarely at neoliberalism as the culprit \u2013 this might be guessed from their book\u2019s title. They provide a highly readable and accessible tale of the development, victory and impacts of neoliberalism, from Hayek\u2019s creation of the Mont Pelerin Society of Intellectuals in 1947 to promote their big idea that individual liberty needed to be projected from overweening states to avoid travelling down \u2018The Road to Serfdom\u2019 as Hayek\u2019s 1944 book explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the most striking aspects of neoliberalism, according to Monbiot and Hutchinson, is its ability to shape our understanding of reality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They relate how Thatcher and Reagan politically weaponised this idea, as stagflation in the 1970s destroyed the credibility of Keynesianism. They also explain how business tycoons, such as the Koch brothers, syphoned anonymous or \u2018dark\u2019 money through universities and think tanks to reinforce their academic authority. Big business received a manyfold return on their investment, as they gained \u2018freedom\u2019 from regulation. States were weakened and turned into market cheerleaders rather than regulators, while CEO salaries soared and ordinary workers\u2019 salaries flatlined.<\/p>\n

According to Monbiot and Hutchinson, one of the most striking aspects of neoliberalism is its ability to shape our understanding of reality. By promoting a narrow, individualistic worldview, it has eroded our sense of collective responsibility and our capacity for empathy. The authors argue that this has contributed to the rise of populism and authoritarianism, as people seek simple solutions to complex problems from people like Trump.<\/p>\n

Seymour probably wouldn\u2019t disagree with much in \u2018The Invisible Doctrine\u2019.\u00a0 His focus, though is very different.\u00a0 He explores what he sees as the perennial attraction of fascism and violence.\u00a0 While \u2018The Invisible Doctrine\u2019 explains how neoliberalism has pushed people into the arms of the far right, \u2018Disaster Nationalism\u2019 explores how the far right has pulled people into their orbit, not by duping them but by understanding them. Seymour locates the current resurgence of the right wing in a long tradition of fascism, not just in the run-up to the Second World War but further back, around the world in different countries and cultures, and ultimately into our very natures.\u00a0 He claims that we all have our own \u2018jackboot\u2019 inside us, ready to emerge in the right or rather wrong circumstances.<\/p>\n

Seymour examines in detail how different right-wing governments, notably Duerte in the Philippines boasting about his killing sprees and Modi in India with massacres of Muslims, have used violence to gain political victory in democracies.\u00a0 He traces what he sees as a straight line between the establishment of Israel based on a myth of terra nullius while being an act of colonialism of Palestine to the genocide of Gaza.\u00a0 I found his detailed dissection of the narratives and myths of far right actors from politicians to loan shooters, particularly fascinating: how they interlink violence, disaster, sex and death.\u00a0 Rather than passing over this material as the mouthing of madness, he takes it seriously and requires us to do the same.\u00a0 It is strong stuff, not for the faint-hearted.<\/p>\n

\n

Ultimately I found neither totally satisfying in terms of what we should do about it but of course solutions are a lot to ask for.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ultimately, I found neither totally satisfying in terms of what we should do about it, but of course, solutions are a lot to ask for. They both advocate building collective action as a healing tool and a fightback against incipient fascism. How precisely that is done may require further books. Seymour provides some welcome encouragement for success by pointing out the contradictions within the modern far right, such as their worship of \u2018muscular capitalism\u2019 and lukewarm support for \u2018workers\u2019.<\/p>\n

So which should you read?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t find much new in \u2018The Invisible Doctrine\u2019 but have read about the neoliberalism story extensively elsewhere. I also found the book somewhat Anglo-centric, and even then, with notable gaps such as an account of Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s brief reign over the Labour Party in the UK and the challenges of telling \u2018a new story\u2019 to counter neoliberalism when our mainstream and social media is controlled by forces supporting neoliberalism.\u00a0 Still, if you are unfamiliar with the Neoliberalism story, it is well told in about 150 pages.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Disaster Nationalism was an eye-opener for me, packed with detail and analysis, which I had previously avoided.\u00a0 Its scope and depth is incredibly impressive.\u00a0 Everyone should read this, probably twice, to take it all in, especially if like me, you have lived to date in the relative security and luxury of the liberal middle classes in the Global North. Just make sure you have a towel over your head or a strong drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henry Leveson-Gower examines two texts that explain how neoliberal thinking and human frailty brought us to where we are. Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization, Verso 2024 … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,82],"tags":[2749,692,2762,1445,2763,2760,118,2761,140],"class_list":["post-116319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-reviews","tag-dec-2024","tag-donald-trump","tag-duerte","tag-far-right","tag-gaza","tag-george-monbiot","tag-henry-leveson-gower","tag-modi","tag-neoliberalism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}